A Cricket on the Hearth
by TheArtfulJackDawkins
Summary: Twilight's never quite complete unless she hears the crickets sing.
1. Chirp the First

_Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT. I also do not own __A Cricket on the Heart__ by Charles Dickens._

_Spoiler Alert: This chapter should not contain spoilers. Following chapters may; I will make note of it at the beginning of the chapter if there are any. _

_Rating: T_

_Pairings: Jiminy-Archie/Red-Ruby_

_Summary: Twilight's never quite complete unless she hears the crickets sing._

_AN: First and most importantly, I want to thank __**Patatat**__ on Deviant Art for letting me use her amazing art ("Good Morning Mrs. Hopper") as my cover picture! Thank you __so__ much! It's absolutely beautiful._

_Secondly, as I said in the disclaimer, the title is a reference to Charles Dickens's novella __A Cricket on the Hearth__. I will be following his pattern of calling the chapters "chirps". It's kind of symbolic of her view of Jiminy-Archie as the story will be third person but entirely from Red's perspective. Otherwise I am not following Dickens's plotline at all. Anyway I just recently discovered that I __adore__ Red Cricket shipping. I don't know what it is, but it's totally charming. Obviously that is what got me here. It may have reignited my OUAT love too. It was dimming this season, and that saddened me greatly. But anyway, I hope you enjoy! Reviews are love!_

**A Cricket on the Hearth**

"_To find a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing of all." –Charles Dickens _

_Chirp the First_

It begins sometime around midnight.

Red has overcome any desire to change on the night of the full moon and mastered the wolf even if it came to that. But still, every time that celestial being shows the entirety of its pale face her body resists sleep. On such nights, she'd eventually find rest—albeit later than usual—tucked between a pleasing memory and the tedium of counting sheep. This night however, after hours of flopping around in her sheets like a fish, it still evades her.

Her frustration wins out in the end. The young woman gives what her Gran would define as a "very unladylike" huff of exasperation as she frees her legs from the tangle of blankets. In the cold of winter, the fireplace casts a warm glow over the room. Red surveys her surroundings, still unused to her new royal chambers.

The coverlet she'd tossed off in the beginnings of her failed slumber is made of deep green silk and intricately embroidered with golden thread. Long-stemmed roses are arranged on the nightstands in glass vases rimmed with silver. And from an exquisitely sculpted mahogany rod, lace curtains fall over the window—a window made with _glass_ no less! Her eyes pause there, focusing where the night sky hides behind luxurious fabric. Bare feet hesitate for only a moment over the cold stone floor before padding across to the place her eyes are fixed. The young brunette pushes away the drapes but finds only disappointment. The moon is not visible from this side of the castle.

From somewhere in the courtyard, the clock tower begins its midnight chimes.

She considers for a moment that the moon is most likely entirely visible from the window across the hall. With a room two doors down the corridor, Granny need never know. The old woman would, of course, find it completely inappropriate for her granddaughter to be out of her room in a nightgown. Even if the long, cotton article of clothing leaves only her ankles visible to any wandering eyes. Besides, everyone is asleep anyway.

Decisively, Red tightens the scarlet cloak around her neck and sweeps across the floor, robe billowing in her wake. Doors in this castle—she curses inwardly as she tugs hers open—always squeak so loudly. She shuts it as quietly as possible, hoping the seventh clang of the bell will disguise the sound of unoiled hinges. The window is higher than the one in her room. She feels like a child as she rests crossed arms on the sill and peers up with her usual fascination. There, clearly visible, is the moon's full visage.

"Good evening Red," the voice that speaks is too small to cause her to visibly start but inwardly alarms her nonetheless. Beside her right elbow, a cricket—attire complete with suit jacket and top hat—leans on his umbrella. 

"Jiminy, you frightened me," she tells him with a toothy grin, ducking her head a bit to level their eye line.

"I'm sorry," he replies, a halfhearted sort of smile in his voice. His face can reveal nothing. "Although I can honestly say I haven't heard those words directed at me in a very long time,"

Playfully, she tells him, "I don't see why not. You're quite the fearsome beast."

Jiminy grants a wry chuckle, "Said the wolf to the cricket."

The ghost of her smile remains as she rests her cheek on her forearms, "Why are you up so late, Jim?"

"Just a bit of stargazing." He has a soft, calming sort of voice, she notices for the first time. One that is normally full of light and hope but is darkened this evening for reasons she cannot know. "And you?"

"Something similar." He looks toward her with an expression she interprets as confusion, though she can't be entirely sure. "All my life," she explains, "Wolf's Time meant that I would be locked in my room each night until its passing. When I learned to control the wolf, it never occurred to me that I had never _really_ looked at a full moon. Once I had, I just…couldn't stop looking."

The cricket stares forward, not sparing a glance in her direction. Silence stretches on between them for an uncomfortable moment where Red wonders if she's said something wrong. Before she can open her mouth to break the hush, he finally replies.

"As a boy, I used to lie awake at night and wish—wish that I was someone else. Orion maybe," he says, pointing to the hunter in the sky with the tip of his umbrella. Red grins at the thought of Jiminy in armor instead of formal wear, a club held high over his antennae. "And one day, my wish came true. Sometimes I like to look up at the stars and wonder what life might have been like if I had never made a habit of wishing in the first place."

She should have known he was a man once upon the time. In their realm, it was rare to meet a talking beast that had not begun human. For whatever reason though, the realization strikes her. She tries to imagine Jiminy Not-Cricket, creating a collage of what she knows of him in her mind's eye. Kindness, humility, wisdom, forgiveness. All so difficult to translate into physicality, but not impossible.

"What were you like?" the young woman asks, unable to keep a bit of her curiosity from spilling over. "As a human, I mean."

Jiminy sighs, though he's so small she barely hears it, and seems to give his response a bit of thought. With head bowed, he tells her, "I-I wasn't a _good_ man, Red."

"I don't see how that's possible." She gives an encouraging grin here. "You have the strongest conscience of anyone I've ever met."

"I always have had a strong center of morality, that's true. The problem is that for a long time, I didn't have the courage to follow it. That's the trouble, really. Men who know better should do better."

She looks down at the small creature, a frown creasing her brow. His regret is palpable, but there is more than that. His small form has been slumped with some unseen weight since the moment he first made his presence known to her. "You seem melancholy this evening. Did the Blue Fairy not give you hope today?"

"Oh yes of course," Jiminy replies as though such a thought had not flickered in his mind for even a moment. She hopes his confidence is placed correctly. Somewhere in the castle, Gepetto has already begun work on the wardrobe. "It's nothing like that. I have every faith that things will happen as they must."

"Then what's troubling you?"

He seems to consider her, perhaps deciding if she is a trustworthy confidante. One antenna twitches; a foot lifts and repositions a hair to the right; wings flutter briefly then halt. She wonders if he always had trouble staying still, or if it was a trait that came with becoming an insect.

"Gepetto," he stops after saying his friend's name and starts again. "Lately, Gepetto has been very angry with me for events that occurred in his youth. I fear that I-I will never be free of the sins of my past."

Red wants to question what he means—what his story is—, but thinks better of it. He needs a word of encouragement or perhaps a comforting touch. The latter is, of course, impossible. Does he miss that human contact, she wants to ask. "You know what I think?" she says instead. "I think that if you're where you want to be today—or at least on the way there—you should be thankful for your past. No matter how bad, it brought you _here_."

He stares up at her for a moment, black eyes revealing nothing, "I think you just might be wise, Red." But he doesn't sound shocked or confused by the declaration. He states it as a fact, one that no one had happened to mention before. He sort of amazes her, and that fact is entirely unexpected.

She smiles gratefully—and imagines he's probably smiling back—before turning her head back to the night sky. They fall into companionable silence, Red now watching the stars and Jiminy's eyes fixed on the moon. Red doesn't know if she's exactly where she wants to be in life yet, but she thinks she might like where she is right now.


	2. Chirp the Second, Part 1

_AN: Ok so this will be part one of two. It's both sides of the curtain: just before the curse happens and just after. I apologize for not having any real Red Cricket feels here. It's building to a more important scene between them in part two, I promise. Hope you like it! Read and review!_

**A Cricket on the Hearth**

_Chirp the Second, Part 1_

Red sits on the bench below her window, chin resting atop crossed arms on the sill. The sky is relatively clear—a crisp pale blue that fades bright orange as the sun sets—, but she can already smell some foul magic on the wind. The entire castle knows the curse is coming this night, though they know not when or how it is they can sense its coming at all.

For her part, Red feels like her insides are on fire. Her fingers tap, her blood boils, her heart beats hard in her chest. She stands, sits, stands, paces, toys with her Gran's yarn, paces, sits, stands, sits. She just can't seem to stay still.

"If you don't quit fidgeting, girl, I'm gonna have to tie you to that chair," Granny says, glancing over the top of her glasses' gold rims.

The younger woman gives a nervous smile and lifts her legs up to sit sideways on the bench, "Sorry Gran."

"Stop your worrying," her eyes remain fixed on her knitting as she continues. "Fretting over it won't do anyone any good. It'll all turn out alright if you just have a little faith."

"Everyone keeps saying that," Red murmurs lowly, her head leaning against the window sill. Her grandmother seems to study her for a moment, probably taking in the slump in her shoulders or the fact that her fingers _still_ have not stopped tapping.

"Here," the older woman says at last. She looks pointedly from Red to the half-finished scarf in her outstretched hand. Wary of the look on Granny's face –eyes sharp and lines around her mouth prominent—, she hesitates before reaching for the offered knitting with more than a hint of confusion.

Granny untangles herself from the excess yarn as she explains, "That oughtta keep your mind busy. I'm going down to fetch some water from the kitchen."

"Oh, don't get up, Granny. I'll—."

"Nonsense," the older woman interrupts, easily waving her off. "I need to stretch my legs."

Knowing full well she's fighting a losing battle, her granddaughter persists, "The curse could be here at any moment."

"That's no reason to sulk around in my own sloth. It won't take me more than a minute."

Red objects a bit more, Gran gives a snippy rebuttal, and it all serves as a nice distraction for a while. Until Widow Lucas is gone and the young brunette is left alone with her thoughts as well as the realization that she has completely forgotten everything she had once learned about knitting.

Distantly, she hears the erratic clang of a bell but is too caught up in her worries to wonder at its meaning.

A land without magic. What kind of place must that be? It all seems so distant a concept. No fairies, no Dark One. No wizards with their quick fixes or realm transporters with their mystic gateways. Will her cloak work? Will she become the wolf at all? It's a part of her, as real as Red herself, so it must go somewhere. Was she woman or beast in the eyes of nature? And what of True Love? If it is the most powerful magic of all, does it even exist in this strange new home?

She gnaws at the skin around her nails as the minutes creep by. Granny's been gone for longer than Red thinks should be entirely necessary. The woman turns her head toward the open doorway, expecting her grandmother's entrance at any moment. The hall looks darker, she notes. Its walls are shrouded in a deep shadow that provokes a tight knot somewhere in her abdomen. In fact, the whole castle has gone strangely silent.

Something crackles outside her door, a brief fluttering that stops abruptly.

"Gran?" she inquires hopefully. The rustling gives no response. Red's heart beats a little faster, a rabbit thumping in her chest. She moves the tangle of yarn from her lap and stands from the bench. Is this the curse? Waiting around the corner like a stalking cat?

But no dark magic awaits her—not yet. It's just "Jiminy!"

"Red!" he responds in kind, suspended in front of her face by a blur of translucent wings. His voice is tainted with a fearful urgency. "We need to get—" A loud crash cuts him off, and both creatures snap their heads toward the door.

"What was that?" the woman asks, voice hurried and green eyes wide.

"The queen's men have infiltrated the castle. I'm the only one able to make it down the halls unnoticed. The curse," he finally stops to breathe here, "it's here." Every worry she'd mulled over (and over and over) in her mind rushes to the surface in a wave of panic and nausea. Another sharp thud echoes through the corridor.

"Shut the door," Jiminy orders urgently. Red obeys without question, her feet surprisingly unwavering as adrenaline washes over her.

She cries out in surprise as one of the queen's black knights makes contact with the door just as she fits it into the frame. The intruder rams it again, and Red's forearms give out under the force against them. She pivots, pressing her back against the wood for better leverage. He hits it again.

"Jiminy!" she yells at the poor bug hovering helplessly beside her. "The lock!"

Hits it again.

Jim catches her meaning immediately. The cricket hurries to the thick, sliding latch above her head, buzzing as loud as a cicada in her ear as he pushes with all his strength.

Hits it again_._

Red tries to block out her surroundings, tries to focus on concentrating her strength. Despite herself, she asks, "Did you see Granny? Is she ok?"

Hits it again.

Jiminy speaks in an obviously exerted voice as he tells her, "She's safe. She and Gepetto are hidden somewhere they won't be found."

Hits it again.

The company Gran is left with doesn't entirely comfort Red, but she trusts when Jiminy says they are somewhere secure.

"Is Pinocchio with them?" she asks. Her legs fail her for a moment as the knight gives a particularly rough shove. Red yelps but quickly launches herself back against the door with enough vigor to knock the breath from her lungs. Above her, she hears the lock click into place. The knight's patience tears. His irritation bleeds out with an animalistic growl and a series of erratic blows against the wood. The woman he's cursing leaps—or perhaps simply falls—from her place as though the thick oak door has caught flame.

She stumbles to her feet, breath still heavy and back aching. But then, as she focuses on the window in search of an escape route, she sees it. A cloud of purple smoke seeps through the gaps around the edges of the sill and pushes against the glass like ice expanding in a small cup. It fissures loudly under the pressure.

The brunette looks to her companion and finds his black eyes staring blankly at the cracks from his perch on a still rattling door.

She remembers her own fears now, the frightening concept of what will become of the beast inside her. Some strange emotion claws in the middle of her chest as she takes in his small, segmented form. She swallows thickly, eyes growing warm as several unwarranted worst-case scenarios form in her mind.

"What will happen to you?" she asks. He looks at her, and for the first time, she interprets the expression without doubt or hesitation. Jiminy is afraid.

"I don't know," he tells her. His voice is lost, small.

The window bursts.


End file.
